The tendency to make the one female character a ranged fighter while her male partner/teammate fights up close. In fantasy settings, she's the archer or a Squishy Wizard, and the burliest male character has a giant melee weapon. In comic books, especially Marvel Comics in the '60s and '70s, female characters were often given powers that were ranged or unconventional enough to let them stay back while their male teammates did the heavy hitting.

Part of this is due to cultural taboos against showing women getting hit. It may also have to do with the fact that a skimpy costume, which a lot of female characters get stuck with, looks more plausible on someone who isn't in melee. While Action Girls have long since become commonplace these days, heroines are still more likely to have ranged powers than the guys. To some extent, physical reality is also reflected in that women tend to be smaller than men and have a more difficult time passing strength tests, and so would be better off with ranged weapons; in a case of Truth in Television, for exactly that reason the Soviet Red Army during World War II had divisions of female snipers, fighter pilots, machine gunners, and tank commanders, while still barring women from serving as regular infantry. However, this stops being sensible and turns into Stay in the Kitchen when a particular woman meets or exceeds the minimum standards expected of men in close combat roles, but is denied the opportunity to do what she's good at merely because of her chromosomes. And in ancient or medieval settings, this makes even less sense, as bows had to be given very heavy draw weights to be capable of killing through even cloth or leather armor, much less mail from a reasonable distance. On the other hand, swords often weighed less than 4 pounds (crossbows, on the other hand, don't rely on the wielder's muscle for their power, and can therefore be just as effective in the hands of a woman as a man). Two-handed melee weapons are even better suited for women — a real two-handed sword doesn't weigh twice as much as a one-handed sword, but you do wield it with twice as many hands and with a lever arm three to four times as long for much greater power and leverage. (On a one-handed sword, your leverage is based on the distance between your index finger and little finger; for a two-hander, it's the space between your top index finger and your bottom little finger on a longer hilt.) Two-handed swords and polearms almost entirely negate a woman's disadvantages in strength and reach.

Examples:

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Advertising

A Tricon Global ad campaign from the late 1990s featured the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Colonel Sanders and a female Pizza Hut driver as Star Wars characters. They were besieged on all sides by a droid army. While the Taco Bell Chihuahua was completely unarmed and Played for Laughs, the Pizza Hut girl had a blaster pistol and Colonel Sanders bore a light saber.

Anime & Manga

From InuYasha we have Kagome on the bow shooting magic arrows, and the title character on the sword 'n claws, slashing stuff up. Justified in that she's an ordinary (aside from the spiritual powers she inherited via reincarnation), untrained human girl from the modern age, and he's a demon. And even after learning to fight in her own right, Kagome quite sensibly builds on natural talent for archery rather than trying to force herself to become a melee fighter. Also inverted with Sango and Miroku who fit Sword and Sorcerer.

Played with in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: between Subaru and Teana, the tomboyish Subaru is a melee fighter and the more feminine Teana is a ranged shooter. Additionally, among Fate's adoptive children, Erio and Caro, Erio fights with a spear, while Caro primarily uses summon magic.

Inverted in Outlaw Star. Of the four crew members who typically see combat, the two women (Aisha and Suzuku) are melee fighters while the men (Gene and Jim) fight with guns most of the time.

In Black Lagoon, Hansel uses an axe, and Gretel uses a really big gun. Then again, we don't know what gender either of them actually is. They even switch roles, weapons included.

Inverted in Mahou Sensei Negima! with Negi as the ranged mage and Asuna as the martial artist/swordsman in front...initially. Even after Negi starts taking levels in badass and starts fighting up-close, though, Asuna remains on the frontline. The rest of the non-muggles in Negi's all-female class are also mixed between melee fighters (Kuu Fei, Setsuna...), ranged support (Konoka, Kazumi...), and all-around badasses (Kaede and Mana, mainly).

Though this inversion is semi-justified in that the spirit of the trope is upheld—keeping the most "delicate" character out of the fray. Negi'syouth evidently trumps Asuna's femininity. Or lack thereof.

Lina (Mage) and Gaurry (Swordsman) in Slayers. Probable aversion, given that Lina is no slouch with a sword herself.

Inverted in Appleseed: Deunan is only a very average size woman, while her Battle Couple boyfriend Briareos is an 8 feet tall cyborg. Deunan is the far more hot headed of the two and always goes in first while Briareos covers her from the back.

In Naruto, Tenten plays this straight with her enormous arsenal of ranged weapons, as does Temari with her fan. However, most of the other female characters avert this, particularly Sakura and Tsunade, who both pack a huge punch and both are seen getting hit (and getting up from said hits) multiple times.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Of the opening crew, Simon (drill), Kamina (katana), Yoko (rifle). When Yoko gets the controls of a robot, the Dayakaiser, it has a giant cannon on it; Gurren Lagann, by contrast, typically fights with a giant friggin' drill, with its ranged options being used once, maybe twice before being sidelined in favour of Giga Drills.

This is somewhat inverted in Lord Marksman and Vanadis. While most of the men do fight in close quarters, the main character Tigre fights exclusively with a bow, and the female Vanadis who surround him fight exclusively with close combat weapons such as swords, spears and staffs.

Inverted in Black Butler with Ciel and Lizzy. While Ciel carries a pistol and is an excellent shot, he has asthma and poor stamina. In one battle, he even sprained his ankle wearing high heels while Lizzy picked up a sword and smashed some Bizarre Doll's heads in. Both are badass, and the only reason why Ciel couldn't help in that scene was because his gun jammed.

Inverted in Thou Shalt Not Die where Kuroi generally sit in the back lines and wait for a moment to move in to use his Mind Rape powers while Mashiro is focused on physical enhancement and therefore a front-line brawler and berserker.

Inverted in Ōkami-san where Ryoko uses her boxing gloves while Ryoshi favors his slingshot. In his case, it's possible it's due to his fear of being stared at: he can hide and snipe from anywhere while their enemies are focused on the girl right in front of them.

G.I. Joe pairs sword-wielding Snake-Eyes with Scarlett and her crossbow and throwing stars. Also averted in that Snake isn't above using a gun when the situation calls for it, and Scarlett is such a good hand-to-hand combatant that she was the early team's martial arts instructor.

X-Men provides a sibling example. Illyana Rasputin is a teleporter and sorceress; while her older brother Piotr hits things really, really, really hard. Although Magik (Illyana) usually needs time to teleport and only has her full complement of sorcery when she's in Limbo, so she ends up relying on slicing things up with her soulsword.

In The Walking Dead, Andrea quickly becomes an elite sniper whose skills prove invaluable to Rick's group, even though she had no firearms training or experience before the zombie holocaust.

Fan Works

In The Prayer Warriors, surprisingly, this is not played straight in spite of the themes of gender-based roles. The women, when they fight, use a fairly diverse arsenal of weapons, such as a gun (Mary), a dagger (Ebony), a sword and a spear (Clarisse), and a club (Annabeth and her opponent). Among the men, most use swords, but also can use an axe (Draco), a sword and spear (Percy Jackson), or a sniper rifle (Grover).

For Kamen Riders, Riderman and Kamen Rider Den-O Rod, Gun and Wing Form technically attack from the distance. Kamen Rider Amazon, Joker, Nadeshiko and Den-O Sword, Axe, and Super Climax Form all worked when they were in close combat.

And when they weren't in Kamen Rider Form: Chosuke uses his fists to punch the lights out of people and JK had a pair of guns filled with rubber bullets.

The female characters also varied: Yuki, Miu, Yayoi, Rumi and Haruka all use weapons that let them attack up close. Tomoko, Erin and Mari were better suited in the back.

Inverted in Month of Sundays, Abe and Taira wielded swords and axes while Ibuki used a kusarigama to ensnare his opponents. Teruhiko also fights by shooting spikes and using a sonic howl. Miura later comes in but since he has the power of the Aries Zodiarts, he also steps back to use his sleeping powers on the opponent. Rumi, as stated above, charges toward opponents with a vaulting pole, kicking them in the face for good measure.

Shingo and Hina Izumi also invert this: Shingo, being a policeman, fires his rifle at the enemy. Hina punches people in the face.

Taken literally with the Item Gods in Fail to the King!. Tav and Phoenix seem like the odd ones out, until you remember that -by Disgaea mechanics- a staff user's normal attack can only be used from one square away, while a spear can attack from two.

Of the main characters in the Star Wars movies, the only ones who use lightsabers are all male. In the original trilogy, Leia is the only one whose blaster bolts never miss. However, there are female lightsaber-wielding Jedi in minor supporting roles.

Zig-zagged in The Force Awakens: For the most part, Rey uses a staff for most of the film, and and Finn uses a blaster. However they don't use those weapons exclusively, since Rey does use a blaster later on and they both, at different points, use Anakin's lightsaber, which Rey ends up with.

Inverted in The Cabin in the Woods: When Marty and Dana are trying to get out of the underground facility beneath the cabin, Marty gets his hands on two weapons. He keeps the gun for himself... and gives the knife to Dana. The inversion is somewhat justified in that Dana, who had to either survive or be killed last in order for the ritual to work, was marginally safer - except that neither of them knew that at the time.

Inverted in The Avengers: Black Widow is a good shot but an even better martial artist, while Hawkeye is good at martial arts but phenomenal with a bow.

Inverted in Snow White and the Huntsman: When Snow White fights in the climactic battle, she does so with sword and shield while her childhood friend William spends the entire movie fighting with bow and arrow.

In 2004's King Arthur, Guinevere is a Woad warrior-maiden and mostly fights using a bow and arrow, while Arthur fights with swords. She does get in on some melee action during the film's final battle.

Willow takes it both ways. Mad Mardigan prefers a sword over all else but is willing and more than able to use a crossbow, and Sorcia's primary weapon is a bow and arrows but she carries a rapier that she is rather skilled with.

The Hunger Games: Katniss is a skilled archer, while Peeta is a wrestler whose main skill is physical strength. The rest of the Tributes fall into this as well with the exception of Marvel, whose skill with thrown spears is his hallmark (and the method behind his only on-screen kill).

Mad Max: Fury Road: While both Max and Furiosa show ability in both melee and ranged combat, Furiosa is definitely the better shot of the two, while Max does more damage against the War Boys close up, including going toe-to-toe with Rictus Erectus and an implication of what he did offscreen to the Bullet Farmer and his mooks using a kukri and a fuel can.

It took Leia five years after Return of the Jedi for Luke to build her a lightsaber, and even then only because Han basically bullied them into it. And it was many more years before she was even marginally competent with the thing.

In many fantasy writings, elves and dwarves follow a similar dynamic. If they spend the novel bickering, the dwarf will probably call the elf effeminate.

In Starship Troopers, men are the infantry, women are the pilots. It's explained that women have been discovered to have better reflexes.

That said, Amara's fighting style relies on using speed and flight to deliver a single killing strike and get out of combat range again rather than the blow-trading which this trope associates with masculinity. Likewise, while Bernard is a master archer, his specific weapon dramatically emphasizes his brute strength rather than his skill or finesse.

Averted in the first Song of the Lioness book. When Alanna and Jonathan go against an ancient group of evil spirits, Alanna is the one who uses the sword, while Jon maintains their magic shields.

Played straight with the main male and female protagonists of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Simon is a swordsmannote well, he starts out a Non-Action Guy, but learns the sword across the trilogy and Princess Miriamele is an archer (and the cover of the last book has both posing with their respective Weapon of Choice). However, when they travel together during the last book, they do start training each other in the other's weapon.

In Spirit Hunters the two guys are samurai while both girls are spellcasters. However Sura is also good with spear and shortsword and Chiri is decent with a pair of kama.

Switched around in Relativity: Overcast (the male) uses a gun while Zephyra is a karate expert.

Surprisingly there is only one two-girl series to adhere to this trope with Denji Sentai Megaranger giving the girls a slingshot and satellite dish, while the boys get a drill, rod and tomahawk. Every other team has, at best, only one female long-range fighter and one of the boys often has a gun.

Almost all heavy cutting/chopping or melee weapons are given to male Rangers, with a possible exception in Tensou Sentai Goseiger, where Yellow's main weapon is a large claw-like slicing device. However, her brother is the one that gets the big heavy axe.

Each of the Gokaigers wields a Sword and Gun, but they pass them around freely as needed. This has Blue using standard dual swords and Yellow using hers as an Epic Flail. Meanwhile, Pink uses standard dual guns with Green using his surroundings just as often, if not more, than the guns.

Partially gender inverted by Ressha Sentai Toqger where not only does the whole team use each other's weapons regularly, but the girls have a hammer and claw while one of the boys has a gun.

Once Upon a Time: Prince Charming's main weapon is a sword; Snow White's is a bow and arrow. Most of the other characters also follow this trope, with the female villains being spellcasters while male villain Captain Hook primarily uses his hook (though he does use a gun on Belle), supporting female hero Granny using a crossbow and Emma, having grown up in our world in the modern day, preferring to use a pistol. The only exceptions are Rumplestiltskin (male, spellcaster), Mulan (female, swordfighter), and Red (female, werewolf).

Revolution: Miles's main weapon? A katana. Charlie's main weapon? A crossbow. Episodes like "Chained Heat" show this trope in action. Even when Charlie ditches the crossbow for a gun by episode 10, she's still shooting.

Inverted as with their above comic selves, Oliver is an archer with Improbable Aiming Skills, while Canary, in season 2, is a former member of the League Of Assassins, capable of killing entire rooms of people. Like most inversions, Ollie's just as good at fighting, if not on her level, and she's no slouch with a bow either.

Played straight with Ollie's island friends. Slade is a Sword nut ASIS combat specialist who likes to get up close with his kills, while Shado is an archer capable of casually hitting targets, and teaches Ollie how to shoot. Like above, she's also a great fighter, and he's a crack shot with rifle or pistol.

Game of Thrones for some reason gives Arya archery skills that she's specifically stated to lack in the books, though she still favors the sword.

Inverted in Justified, in which male deputies Raylan Givens and Tim Gutterson are noted for their skill with guns, while their colleague Rachel Brooks is far more likely to deliver a brutal baton-beating than pull her sidearm.

Stranger Things plays this trope straight via a subverted inversion. Johnathon plans to use a gun on the monster, while Nancy practices strikes with a baseball bat. After they both actually try the gun on old cans, though, Nancy proves to be a superior shot, so they trade weapons.

Tabletop Games

The iconic characters of Pathfinder tend to be notably even-handed with regard to their gender-to-class distribution. Sure, you have a muscular male fighter and a slinky female sorceress, but you also have a male wizard and a female barbarian (who uses a slain giant's shortsword as a two-handed greatsword).

Of the five signature Solars in Exalted, the girls are a mage and an archer, while the guys are a brawler the size of a house, a master swordsman, and a kung fu Ambadassador.

Diablo has a similar arrangement, with a female Rogue who functions best as an archer, and a male warrior and wizard. In the sequel, the two close-quarters combat classes - the Barbarian and the Paladin - are male. The Sorceress is a ranged combatant, and the Amazon specializes in bows, javelins and spears - only the latter is close-quarters. While Diablo III allows players to choose the gender of any class they play, this trope is reflected in the iconics of each class — the Barbarian and the Monk, the primary melee fighters among the Nephalem, are male; while the Demon Hunter and the Wizard, the primary ranged attackers, are female, though the Witch Doctor and (addedl ater) Crusader invert this dynamic.

In Monster Hunter this is averted for human characters, as any hunter can use any weapon, and inverted for the signature Battle Couple monsters of the first game, the Raths: Male Rathalos is a flying wyvern that keeps watch from the air while its' mate Rathian patrols her territory on the ground. The actual moves used by them reflect this during gameplay, as Rathian is more fixated on using ground-based attacks, usually only taking flight to administer a tail-swat with her poison stingers or to deliver clawing strikes, and saves most of her fireballs for ground-to-ground fire, whereas the Rathalos is much more prone to taking to the sky to blow fireballs, even having a sequence in which he will circle the battlefield from very high up, lobbing a series of fireballs at hunters before returning to closer range.

Path of Exile has only classes that fit this trope by default: ranged characters (Witch, Ranger) are female while close-combat characters are male (Marauder, Shadow, Templar, Duelist), with a class capable with any form of combat (Scion) also being female. Due to how character building works, it's entirely feasible to make a Duelist or Shadow into an archer, a Shadow or Templar into a spellcaster, or a Ranger into a close-range swashbuckler.

Night Elves have only two melee units, one is male, the other... kinda looks like one (though the species has no sexes and does not reproduce at all). All their ranged units (save one) are female. Their heroes are two male, one each for ranged and melee.

Rather inverted in spirit if not letter within the background - with the men of the race being asleep for centuries as part of their druidism studies, the Night Elves' military troops were entirely women while men were largely support casters (well, Druids of the Claw turning intobears as they see fit notwithstanding) for long until attrition, time and the necessities of MMO character customization relaxed this divide.

Humans, Naga and Undead have only one female unit each, which is ranged. Female heroes for these races are all ranged.

World of Warcraft has no gender restrictions on class; any class can be either gender. However, a demographic study showed that while not all female players are healers, they do statistically prefer ranged DPS to melee.

NPC-wise, centaur males are just about always physical fighters, centaur females are just about always casters. Their hunters are also males, though, so centaur guys occasionally do shoot arrows.

Naga also fall into this trope, with the more monstrous looking males exclusively melee fighters, and the more humanoid and elegant females exclusively casters. This may have some lore justification, in that the Naga queen was well known to be a powerful mage, and may not have held men in general in high regard. It's implied the men are far less intelligent than their women, hence brute strength vs study-intensive magic.

In the second Viewtiful Joe game, his girlfriend Sylvia is playable as a secondary character (rather than being a bonus mode as in the first) and uses a gun instead of punches.

Played straight in a lot of the Final Fantasy games, where not everyone can use everything.

Final Fantasy IV: Rosa uses a bow, and is the only character who does so, and all three female characters are mages. Note that Gilbert/Edward/Spoony uses a harp.

Note that Edward and Paladin!Cecil can use bows, as can Palom and Porom, but there's usually little reason to equip them thusly. The bow and arrow is actually the most usable weapon in the game, with rods (usable by Rydia, Tellah, Palom and Porom) being a close second. Rosa is the only character restricted to bow use, which in turn makes use of her "Aim" skill.

Final Fantasy VI: Fairly open due to the system which allows all characters to use melee and ranged weaponry as well as magic. Early in the story, however, the only characters able to use magic are Terra and Celes, both female.

Final Fantasy VII is an interesting exception: Of the three dedicated missile fighters, Barret and Vincent are male while Yuffie is female, but the hand-to-hand combatist and the dedicated mage, Tifa and Aerith respectively, are female.

Final Fantasy VIII mixes and matches. All of the female antagonists use ranged attacks, and all of the male antagonists have at least one melee attack, but there's one ranged and two melee attackers of each gender among the six main characters, and one melee and two ranged attackers among the three males played in flashbacks.

Final Fantasy IX continues the trend of exceptions: Two White Magician Girls (both of whom can use ranged attacks and summon magic) and a melee fighter round out the females, while the males have a thief, a black mage, a martial arts mercenary, and a knight. Quina's gender is unknown, and even called "s/he" throughout.

Final Fantasy X The females are a thief who uses melee attacks, a black mage with a ranged attack, and a standard White Magician Girl with a (uselessly weak) melee attack, who, like the two before, can use summon magic. The guys have physical attacks, but the ranged fighter is a guy.

In Final Fantasy X-2 how each character (All of whom are female) attacks depends on the dress-sphere (Job class) they use, but the default spheres- warrior, thief, and gunner- include two melee attackers and one ranged.

In Final Fantasy XII, one of the few Final Fantasy games where everyone can equip anything, Fran, Ashe, and Penelo have stronger magic skills (Penelo having the most MP) than Vaan, Balthier, and Basch, who are stronger with physical attacks (Basch has the least MP).

Final Fantasy XIII tends towards flipped genders. Sazh and Hope are both males that use ranged weapons (guns and a boomerang, respectively), leaving Snow as the only melee-centric male with his fisticuffs. Fang is a woman who uses a short-range lance, while Vanille uses a fishing rod to attack from afar. Lightning's gunblade can smash or shoot, but she seems to favor the blade part.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 plays it notably straighter. Both party members have the ability to smash and shoot, as Serah's sword can become a bow and Noel's swords become a javelin. However, the creators specifically gave Serah a bow to "preserve her femininity".

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's only female race, the Viera, have pretty much all magic and ranged classes, except the Fencer and Assassin. The sequel's Gria have more melee abilities, though one cheap way to win is to have a Gria Hunter fly to the highest point and have her shoot all the enemies.

In Super Smash Bros. U/3DS has 3 types of customizable Mii characters, a Brawler, a Gunner or a Swordsman. In the trophies (and the Fighting Mii Team lineup) both the Swordsman and the Brawler are male Miis, and the Gunner is a female Mii.

Inverted in terms of Smash newcomers Robin and Lucina: Lucina is the skilled swordfighter, while Robin prefers spells over swords. And while Robin has a female variant as well (who plays this trope straight with Chrom in her Final Smash), male Robin is the default gender of the two.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare subverts this trope. Resident Action Girl Ilona apparently used to work as a sniper for Spetsnaz, which would make you think she's more of a long-range fighter in game. However, when we see her in combat, she never uses a sniper rifle and uses the standard assault rifle loadout of the male characters, and is in fact the only character in the entire game to engage in extended hand-to-hand combat when she fights Hades.

Dragon Age: Origins plays this mostly straight. You can get up to eight members on your team; two men with huge swords, clubs or axes, one man with a dagger-sword combination, and one man with shield and sword filling the Tank role. Then there are two women who are mages, one who's intended as an archer, and a golem who punches things to death. That last one used to be a dwarven woman, but is now rather ambivalent about the whole idea of gender.

However, the Expansion PackAwakening averts this with the two rogue party members: the male rogue Nathaniel is better suited as an archer, and the female rogue Sigrun is meant to duke it out in melee (however, thanks to readily available Skill Point Resets in Awakening, you can re-spec them at any time). You also get one female sword and shield warrior, Mhairi. The Witch HuntDLC also pairs a female warrior with a male mage.

Dragon Age II again averts this with Aveline and Isabela—a brawny "Guardian" warrior and a swashbuckling Pirate Girl, respectively. Of the four ranged party members, only one is female (the mage Merrill). Played straight with Hawke's siblings - Carver is a swordsman, Bethany is a mage.

Dragon Age: Inquisition has nine companions, three from each class (Warrior, Mage, Rogue), and one female character from each set of three, so technically the game averts this since the one female melee fighter (Cassandra) is proportional to the number of male melee fighters, as are the two female ranged fighters (Vivienne, Sera) to the number of male ranged fighters, although it should be noted that Vivienne is a Magic Knight making her more melee focused than her fellow male mages, and inversely, Cole is a rogue who specializes in duel-wielding daggers, although you can equip him with a bow.

Averted in Romancing SaGa as any character can use Bows, but Claudia definitely fits this due to her High Battle Point (BP) and BP Regen at the end of the game and the high end techs for Bows use a large amount of BP, she even starts off with a bow.

Her bodyguard, Gray, uses a sword as his default weapon, though. Even moreso if you play as him, since Falcata, his ultimate weapon, is a katana.

The dual plotlines in Threads of Fate centered around a male and female protagonist, respectively. The girl specialized in long-range magical attacks, although she was also equally competent with her Rings of Death.

Ironically enough Mint is very proud of her dropkick and it's her first resort in cutscenes on anything that she can get near to, even things that she would be better off nuking from a distance.

Played straight in Disgaea 2 with bare-knuckled Adell and gun-toting Rozalin.

And in Disgaea 3, Sapphire comes with a gun, but she also has proficiencies in bow and Ax.

Played straight again in Disgaea 5 with fistfighting Killia and gunslinging Seraphina.

The Super Robot Wars series does this fairly often. The KoRyuOh in Alpha, canonically piloted by Brooklyn, is Primarily Melee-oriented while Kushua's RyuKoOh form uses ranged magic. In Compact 2/Impact, You have the paired team of Kyosuke (Alt Eisen) and Excellen (Weiss Ritter), which is repeated in Alpha 2 with Arado (Wildwurger) and Seolla (Wildfalken). MX (and KoRyu/RyuKoOh) played with the idea by having the combination being a single machine that transforms from one form to the other depending on the situation. In MX's case, this was reserved for the Mid-Season Upgrade.

Similarly, entries with a choice of protagonists will often assign the female to the Fragile Speedster Real Robot whereas the male pilots the brawny Super-type. Indeed, Kusuha is pretty much the ONLY female in the series solely associated with super robots (though Z2's lack of a super robot original and Esther's nagging implications of importance may lead to her getting one as well).

She gets a speedy Real in Saisei-hen, But you can choose Crowe's Mid-Season Upgrade, and it does not necessarily have to be the brawler.

J allows the player to subvert this by choosing the machine separately, but given that Touya starts as Kouji Kabuto's classmate, while Calvina begins aboard the Nadesico, they're definitely steering you that way.

Out of the two 'Real Robot' choices, however, Calvina's stats and abilities suit the power-fist using Coustwell, whereas a Real Robot-pilot Toya (by default) has a higher ranged stat and Assail/Rush Attack, a spirit command that is utterly useless for the same machine, but a godsend for the Weissritter-expy Bellzelute.

Original Generation: The Moon Dwellers solidifies it by putting Calvina in the Bellzelute and Toya in the Super Robot Granteed.

Subverted in Endless Frontier, where Haken is a gunslinger while Kaguya is the one to swing a big sword.

Double Subverted, actually. Many of Haken's attacks are using his melee gun, or at point blank range, and many of Kaguya's attacks deal with swarms of projectiles.

In '7Blades', the player can choose between two playable characters - a guy with a sword (or seven, per the title) or a girl with a gun, which she nicknames 'Kittykat'

Partially invoked by Golden Axe. The Amazon, Tyris Flare has a long-sword, but is the weakest of the three characters in combat, and is much better with her screen-clearing magic attacks. The Dwarf, Gilius Thunderhead, and Barbarian Ax Battler have quite a few more direct attacks, but weaker magic.

The relationship of Vanguard-Reyvateil as a Battle Couple in the EXA_PICO games is this. Male vanguard attacks enemies at close range while female reyvateil shoots magic from afar.

Although it's partially averted with the female vanguards, all of which wield melee weapons: Krusche wields a chainsaw, Amarie a combination between a bow, dual swords and a lyre; and Cocona a hairclip that turns into a bladed battle scepter (Ar tonelico II) and a duet of laser tonfas (Ar tonelico III).

In Ogre Battle, the starting male class is a swordsman, while the starting female class is an archer. In general, males are better in the front row, though at the most advanced classes, they get some use in the back row.

Though all three of the playable characters in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep wield Keyblades for melee attacks, Aqua, the lone female, is singled out as being an exceptional mage, and most of her unique moves and abilities are spell-based.

Seen as a tendency in League of Legends in which at one point just under half of the ranged champions were female, while a bit less than a fifth of melee champions were female. Riot has since evened the odds somewhat.

The classes of Dragon Nest sort of falls into this. The male classes, Fighter and Cleric, are both pretty up close and physical. Meanwhile, the female classes are Archer and Sorceress, who are both mostly ranged.

Your initial party in Blaze Union works like this, featuring Garlot the (lance-wielding) knight, Jenon the swordsman, and Siskier the archer. From the point the party begins to expand, though, you accumulate lots of heavy-hitting melee ladies and a couple of ranged-fighter men.

Inverted in Fallout: New Vegas. Your humanoid male companions are a mechanic who uses revolvers, a Cold Sniper, and a doctor who uses energy weapons. Your humanoid female companions are a mutant assassin who uses a helicopter blade as a BFS, a scavenger armed with a Power Fist, and a cowgirl with a Short-Range Shotgun. This carries over to the DLC as well; in Honest Hearts, the female companion uses gauntlets while the two males prefer .45 pistols, and the only companion in Dead Money who has a default weapon other than fists is a male ghoul with a 9mm pistol.

This is also true with Fallout 3, where of the male companions include a former raider who uses a fully automatic assault rifle, a ghoul with a sniper shotgun, and an intelligent Super Mutant with a Gatling Laser, (not that any of them have a problem using melee weapons) while the two female companions include a cybernetic Brotherhood of Steel Paladin wielding a Super Sledge and a depraved former slave who's default range weapon is pitifully short ranged double barrel shotgun, but is very proficient in close quarters combat. note Butch, a hoodlum from Vault 111, doesn't really fit either, as he doesn't seem significantly more proficient in either weapon type.

Mass Effect trilogy can both play this straight and invert, depending on Shepard's combat class. For example, played straight with Soldier Male!Shepard and Liara as his teammate/love interest, but inverted with Vanguard Female!Shepard and Garrus as her combat partner/love interest.

Inverted with human teammates in Mass Effect. Ashley is a soldier, Kaidan is a support character better kept to the back ranks.

Also inverted with Tali and Garrus: Tali carries a shotgun, while her best friend/possible lover Garrus is a sniper. He teases her about it when she says fighting husks is easy because "they just run up to us!" and he counters that he's a sniper and "[she's] the one who likes things at short range."

Inverted in Immortal Souls. Technically John and Raven both have both ranged and melee attacks to use, but Raven is most commonly depicted in the game's advertising as wielding a large ornate medieval-style sword, while John is more commonly shown dual-wielding typical modern-day revolvers.

Inverted in Ys Origin - Hugo relies mainly on bombarding the enemy with magic missiles from afar. Yunica, lacking any sort of magical ability, gets in close and goes to work with her axe ( or later on, her father's greatsword).

In Skies of Arcadia toys with this. Vyse and Enrique, both male, use swords, and Drachma uses a hook hand. Aika, a female, attacks with a boomerang, but Gilder, a male, uses guns. Fina's weapon, Cupil, can either smash or shoot depending on what form he's currently in.

Subverted in Tales of Symphonia: Most characters have a combination of melee and ranged attacks, with the exceptions of Regal, who is a physical attacker (with a single healing spell), Raine and Genis (female White Mage and male Black Mage, respectively) and Presea, who despite being a small girl, is the game's resident Mighty Glacier.

In The Return of Ishtar, the sequel to The Tower of Druaga, Gil focuses on fighting enemies up close with his sword, while Ki focuses on ranged attacks with her magic skills.

In Pokémon, the male-only mon Gallade specializes in the Attack stat, is Psychic/Fighting, and all his damaging moves are melee attacks of the "Physical" type. His counterpart Gardevoir, which can be either gender but looks feminine, was originally Psychic only and later given the Fairy-type, specializes in Special Attack and all her damaging moves are ranged and of the "Special" type.

Introduced in the same generation and evolving via the same stone is Froslass, a female-only counterpart to Glalie, who is an Ice/Ghost Fragile Speedster in contrast to Glalie's mono-Ice Jack-of-All-Stats.

Sengoku Basara hasn't got that many female characters to begin with, but about half of them are primary ranged weapon wielders. The female characters also account for all but one of the games' ranged weapon users in total.

Arguably zigzagged (at least in the sense of seeming to avert it, only to play it straight) in '"Dead Island''. There are four playable heroes, and there's both a melee male & female duo and a ranged male & female duo. However, the male heroes are the blunt weapon specialist and the throwing weapon specialist, whilst the female heroes are the gun specialist and cutting weapon specialist. The gun specialist also specialises in using cutting melee weapons as well.

Then the sequel Dead Island: Riptide adds one more hero... a male character whose specialty is beating zombies to death with his fists.

Inverted more in retrospect than directly in Hatoful Boyfriend. In the first game Hiyoko and Yuuya can hook up and become a Battle Couple, but they're rarely shown in combat. The second game has Yuuya happily using firearms, while Hiyoko sometimes uses melee weapons - everything from an uprooted mailbox to various intentional weapons, though apparently she uses even edged ones like a club - but is entirely adept with fists and feet, too.

In Clash of Clans, the first two basic units are the swordfighting male Barbarians and the female Archers. Averted with the flame shooting Wizards and the close combat Valkyries.

Between the Persona 2 duo logy, Ulala (a boxer), Eriko (a fencer), and Lisa (kung fu practitioner) fight up close, but all three are also far better suited to magic. The other two women with ranged weapons (Maya and her pink handguns, Yukino and her razorblades) are the same in that regard, and while Eikichi uses a concealed machine gun, his magic is low.

With the exception of the female protagonist added in the PSP version, all of the females of Persona 3 play this straight to some degree. Yukari plays it the straightest (uses a bow and arrow; has the highest magic stat in the game), and Mitsuru and Aigis are variations of it (Mitsuru uses a rapier, but like Yukari, is far better suited with magic, and Aigis is a physically-inclined robot who uses guns and other artillery). Then there's Fuuka, who provides support and doesn't fight at all.

Persona 4 again gives us Yukiko (throws fans and is the resident Black Mage) and Naoto (uses guns and also good with magic), but averts it with Chie, a kung-fu enthusiast whose move pool is mostly physical, albeit fitted towards a Critical Hit Class to contrast Kanji's plain brute force.

While both protagonists of Hunted: The Demon's Forge are capable of shooting or melee, Caddoc is a melee specialist while E'lara is the ranged specialist.

Each of the males protagonists in Might & Magic: Heroes VI's campaign mode have Might-oriented classes as their defaults, with Sandor being a barbarian, Anton being a knight, and Kiril being a heretic, while the women, Irina and Anastasya, have the magic-oriented Monk and Necromancer classes respectively. Downplayed in that the player has the option of switching their hero's class at the start of the campaign.

Inverted with Alex & Ash in Hotline Miami 2. Alex, the sister, fights up close with a chainsaw, while Ash, the brother, provides fire support with guns, which he either brings himself or picks up from dead enemies.

In Lufia & The Fortress of Doom, both of the male party members have no offensive spells and rely on melee attacks for damage, while both female party members are the offensive magicians of the party. Furthering this trope, Jerin is the only member who can use bows, which make up for their low damage by hitting all enemies in a group. Lufia can attack physically, if you want to let her magical talents go to waste.

In Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, the only shooting weapons are guns, which can only be used by Artea and Dekar. While Selan's magic is much more useful than her physical attacks, Tia is a dedicated smasher.

In Phantasy Star Online 2, male characters start with higher melee attack power, while females are better at techs and ranged attacks. That said, the difference is so tiny that the practical effect is all but nonexistent.

Warhammer-The End Times: Vermintide: Played straight, inverted and subverted in the release trailer. While all the heroes have both melee and ranged abilities, the male Dwarf Ranger and Empire Soldier dispatch the Skaven with melee attacks, while the female Bright Wizard kills them with ranged magic. The male Witch Hunter inverts it, preferring to use guns, while the female Waywatcher subverts it by using both arrows and Elven blades to fight.

Rhi'a from Sands of Destruction is The Gunslinger in a game where every other character fights melee. However, this list of other characters also includes Morte, a girl with a BFS; she's part of a Battle Couple with Knife Nut Kyrie, whose Limit Break involves throwing several knives. You could almost argue that the two of them are inverting the trope, since he doesn't have to get up close to deal damage, even if throwing isn't precisely shooting.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2: Inverted when you are playing as Barry and Natalia. Barry is an adult man, and uses guns as his main weapon. Natalia is a little girl, and her only weapon is a brick. She can throw it, but it is more powerful if used close-up for stealth attacks.

Downplayed in Overwatch, where just about every hero both shoots and weakly smashes with their quick melees. The only main melee hero in the game is Reinhardt, and even then, there's still Zarya, who would most likely be a smasher if it was the best option for her (rather, she uses a particle cannon that she ripped off from a nearby armored truck).

Metal Gear plays this straight with some of its characters. Sniper Wolf, for instance, is the only female member of Foxhound and the group's crack sniper. There's also Quiet, a sniper who usually covers Snake from a distance while he infiltrates and fights up close. Even the Skulls have the females always as snipers while the males always fight up close.

Averted with the Boss whose skill in hand to hand combat is legendary while the crack sniper of her unit is a very old man.

The Elimination PlatformerMetal Saver plays this absolutely straight with its player characters: the boy (Hanbit) punches and kicks enemies while the girl (Narae) shoots them.

In The Banner Saga, this comes into play. All the female characters who join your party are archers while the vast majority of the men who join are melee warriors. Rook does both and Eyvind is a sort of exception in that he can cast long ranged spells. He still can club enemies with his staff. The sequel both doubles down but also averts it some. It doubles down with the Horseborn race who fit the trope to a T (male horseborn use flails while female horseborn use throwing spears.) It is averted though with the introduction of Folka who is a spear and shield wielding warrior and Zefr who is mostly a support character but who can stab enemies with her spear (though she is so weak that it is generally advisable not to).

Played fairly straight in Our Little Adventure with the main four group members. The trope was averted for awhile with their fifth member Paulinethebarbarian, until she died.. Later subverted when Lenny took levels in Ranger and Jordie joined the group as a cleric.

Played straight with the Pre-Scratch Kids in Homestuck (John and Dave use hammers and (1/2)swords, Rose and Jade use needlewands and riflesnote although Rose started out with knitting needles as melee weapons). Completely thrown out the window with the trolls and Post-Scratch Kids.

Inverted in The Senkari where both Freija and Rachel smash (With sword and spear respectively) while Val is in charge of a company of archers.

Errant Story inverts this with the major characters. Jon is a gunslinger and prefers to have as much distance as he can (at one point he fakes fleeing a battle in terror so that he can take up a sniping position) and Ian is a mage. Sarine and Sara are also both mages, but Sarine usually dual-wields short swords while Sara primarily uses her magic for Super Speed.

God of High School averts this with the main trio by having all three main characters smash. Mo-Ri and Dae-Wi do it with their fists while Mi-Ra does it with a sword. It's played straight with Priest Axley and Priest Saturn though.

Inverted in that Lie Ren, a male fighter, uses 2 sub-machine guns as weapons, where as his partner Nora Valkyrie uses a giant hammer.

Inverted by Roman Torchwick and his female sidekick Neopolitan. Roman usually spends his time shooting at people with his gun-cane (though he can hold his own in close combat), while Neo is an expert hand-to-hand combatant, and her umbrella doesn't seem to have any ranged capabilities at all (unusual in this series).

While Noob has a correct balance of male smashers and shooters, the ten-ish female characters are a different story : Couette, Elyx and (according to the novels) Kary are healers, Gaea and Roxana magic users, Gaea's reroll, Ivy and Nazetrîme's real incarnation do distance DPS. Saphir can do both as a paladin, but is more Barrier Warrior oriented until she has to replace Fantöm as her team's tank. The only female characters with actual hand-to-hand combat oriented classes are Golgotha, Omega Zellette and Nazetrîme who's not using her real character, and the two latter only lasted a handful of episodes in the web series.

Red vs. Blue inverts it with Sibling Team North and South Dakota. Big brother North favors the sniper rifle while his sister South prefers to fight up close.

Western Animation

Averted in Avatar: The Last Airbender, where benders of both genders freely mix short-range and long-range attacks. Non-benders can be either. While Mai sticks to knife throwing, Ty Lee and Suki are both melee fighters. Sokka, the main non-bender on the good guy's team, fights at both distances (his signature weapons are a sword and a boomerang).

In The Legend of Korra, most benders are both close range and mid-range, including Korra. Lin Bei Fong, Jinora and Ikki tend to favour long range attacks, though they do get close and personal when called for it. Asami fights hand-to-hand.

Averted in an interesting way in Teen Titans with the Battle Couple of Robin and Starfire - he's a Badass Normal with an array of ranged and close-combat weapons, and she's a Flying Brick with both Super Strength and the ability to fire energy blasts. Both are equally capable of smashing or shooting. For the rest of the team, Cyborg (who has superstrength and a sonic cannon) also does both, but Beast Boy tends to turn into big, powerful animals to fight at close range, while Raven, though her mystical abilities make her probably the most powerful member of the team, tends to fight from a distance and stay out of direct combat. The Titans pretty much cover the whole spectrum of this trope.

In Young Justice the male members of the team are either straight hand-to-hand combatants, or include hand-to-hand with their weaponry. The female members of the team, however, have telekinesis and a bow-and-arrow so they do not need to physically touch their opponents. This is more balanced come season 2, where melee female heroes are introduced to the Team in the 5 year gap. Furthermore, although Artemis is primarily long-range, she has been shown to be quite good in close-hand combat. Her sister definitely prefers it, fighting with swords.

In Winx Club the Winx girls usually blast their opponents with magic while the male Specialists have to fight with swords and other weapons.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Averted with White Tiger who specializes in slicing her foes with her electric claws. Inverted for the Frightful Four; Wizard, The Claw, and Trapster use range attacks, while Thundra is The Brute who does all the smashing.

In Wakfu, the two females of the Brotherhood of the Tofu, Evangelyne and Amalia primarily attack from a range, Evangelyne with her bow and magic arrows, and Amalia with her control over plant life. The males, Ruel, Yugo and Sadlygrove, favor more close combat. Sixth Ranger Cleophelia subverts this somewhat; she uses sometimes a hand crossbow but also is enthusiastic in hand-to-hand fights.

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